Replies

You have called for the subject of "Pope Joan" to be banned from this forum being offensive to Catholics. Yet when Alex pointed out that Catholics have also posted on the same subject you stand in defense of their right to post this subject. You can't have it both ways. Either the subject should be banned for everyone or it is not banned at all.

No. I think you're oversimplifying the issue. When something comes up in the media (be that "Pope Joan," "the Da Vinci Code," "the Golden Compass," or even despite his being taboo here, Jack Chick), it merits discussion, especially if it's in the context of analyzing and arguing against it. Each of the five articles mentioned previously about "Pope Joan" are in this context: one informing about a book, one calling to action in response to a question on Jeopardy, and three clearly debunking the myth in response to it being in the MSM stories.

This whole paragraph is just a backhanded way of attributing motives to a poster by questioning the motives of the poster.

Yet the basic facts of the paragraph are true.

From the best that I can tell, by ordering us to not "make it personal" the RM is asking us to give posters the benefit of the doubt as to their motives by sticking to the issues. We all make judgments; that's part of being human. Not "making it personal" is a way to keep those judgments to ourselves to keep relative peace here on the forum. That said, sometimes, some posters make it very very difficult to do that.

None of these posts are done in isolation; FR is a community, and members of a community have personalities that, as time goes on, are easier to discern. Sometimes this is beneficial, sometimes it isn't, but either way it's inevitable.

Context is everything. What a poster posts, when the poster posts, and what else has been posted in recent memory are all important. I think Marshmallow's analysis in 39 explains the situation very well.

But I'm not the RM, so take my 2 cents worth as just that.